MKII CMOS invalid--

[ZORK2]

After swapping out the power supply for my MKII,  the game ran great. Now when it powers up, after it goes through it's inital checks, a screen pops up and says "CMOS INVALID-- FACTORY SETTINGS RESTORED" OF course resetting the entire game. It does this every single time. Other than that, the game runs fine.
I tryed to put  Dip Sw #1 and Dip Sw #2 in just about every configuration possible, thinking that maybe one of them had been toggled to an incorrect possition by accident? It is still doing it. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
ZorkII

[Ken Layton]

The on-board memory backup battery is dead or missing.

[ZORK2]

Cool thanks, I'll swap it it out and see if that does the trick!

[ZORK2]

Cool, worked like a charm. Battery no. 2325 if anyone needs one. A little tricky to find, I ended up a Radio Shack to find it.

ZorkII

[ZORK2]

Here is a weird coincidence,
I have gone through 2 marquee lights since replacing that battery! The light that has been in the machine for years went out about an hour after replacing that battery.Has to be a coincidence.  Got another bulb, put it in, it worked, about 2 hours later, fired up the machine, and now THAT one is not lighiting up!  Strange!??! Just a random bad bulb? Or could something be causeing them to burn out? Any thoughts?

Zork 2

[shardian]

Here is a weird coincidence,
I have gone through 2 marquee lights since replacing that battery! The light that has been in the machine for years went out about an hour after replacing that battery.Has to be a coincidence.  Got another bulb, put it in, it worked, about 2 hours later, fired up the machine, and now THAT one is not lighiting up!  Strange!??! Just a random bad bulb? Or could something be causeing them to burn out? Any thoughts?

Zork 2

Did you replace the starter?

[SirPeale]

Ballast could be bad cooking the bulb.

[ZORK2]

Boy this is a good one! I had an electric space heater plugged in the same room as the game, last night before I went to bed I unplugged the little heater and a instantly the marquee light came back on!! And thinking about it, the heater was off when I got home with the new bulb and tryed it out! Weird why the heater would only affect the marquee light and not the rest of the game!!

[channelmaniac]

It's pulling enough current to drop the voltage going to the game cabinet.

Replace the starter to see if that helps. If it doesn't then move the heater to a different outlet that would be on a different breaker.

I hope you aren't running on an old fuse type electrical box with a penny under the fuse. I'd like to think that if the voltage is dropping that much to cause a bulb to not turn on that you are pulling enough current to trip a breaker or fuse.

[ZORK2]

Yeah I'll have to try and replace the starter on it and see what that does. For now I just havn't been running the heater in there. It's strange though, because I have run it in there before with no effect? It's a 1500W heater, so I suppose it's just pulling enough current to drop the voltage going into the cabinate? It wasn't in the same socket as the game, but it was on the same circuit? Strange!!

[Kevin Mullins]

It may be enough of an initial current draw from the heater to make something like a fluorescent light act funny, especially if it's already kinda cold in there. (hence why the heater would be kicking on to begin with)

I have a fluorescent light fixture in the kitchen that will act funny when it's cold enough. (and it doesn't have starters, it's a ballast)
Very common to happen in garages and such as well.